Metalworker
by lifeline75
Summary: Lex Caro. Artist. Perdido Beach's new kid. Coates Academy's ninth grade emo representative. FAYZ resident. 'Metalworker'. Challenger of Drake Merwin. Freak. Moof. Crush-er of Drake Merwin? Yeah, yeah, DrakeXOC.
1. Welcome to Coates Academy

**Author's Note: So... I recently finished reading Hunger by Michael Grant, the second book in the Gone series. I've also recently become a Drake Merwin fan since he appears a lot more in Hunger. Anyways, I decided to have a bit of fun with this and you'll see a bit more... Drake versus Lex later on. Review if possible please (: And yes, I do have many, many emo OC's. There's a reason for that.  
**

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* * *

**_Coates Academy for Rich and Troubled Adolescents._

Lex Caro looks out her window darkly. She's made a point of crossing her arms and sitting with one leg up in her dad's new Porsche, leaving a now-dried footprint on the once-perfect crème leather. He doesn't notice, or rather, doesn't **want** to. Nobody needs to explain how Lex felt in the past two weeks living with her dad who she'd grown up without. How he and his wife had welcomed her into their home, both very friendly, but she'd still felt all alone in their huge mansion, even with a king-sized canopy bed and a personal washroom and a butler. It was suffocating.

Even now, her stepmother was trying to play optimistic. "Oh, look! Coates Academy is huge! You're going to have such a fun time here, hun!"

_You'll meet such nice girls here! This is sorority preparation, Alex! Being in a sorority is such fun! Like me, I was in…_ Me, me, me. Whatever.

Nobody calls her Alex.

Dave—**Dad—**starts to open the door. "Do you need me to walk you in, sport?"

Lex yanks her door open and slams it shut, grabs her luggage from the back trunk—a half-deflated duffel bag and a suitcase—and then looks at her father in exasperation. "I've been walking into schools without a dad since I was seven. Do I **need** someone to walk me in? No."

He sighs again. In the old days, he would have yelled at anyone going against him. Exploded like a volcano. Guess he went to anger management classes, because now, he **sighs**, which is much, much worse in many ways.

Number one being that you can't get angry at him.

"Let me rephrase that." He leans against his door. "Do you **want** me to walk you in?"

"No."

"Okay then, have a good time. Call home if you need anything."

Lex looks around to see other kids being dropped off. Their parents are hugging them, getting teary. There are a select few who just storm out of cars and march off without another word. Nice. She wouldn't want this scum to hug her anyways.

Moving her suitcases up the front steps of the main building, someone growls, "Move it!" and pushes past Lex. She stops for a moment. It's a boy, Caucasian, a couple of inches taller than her. Not scary, really, but for the hard glint in his eyes. Would have been cute too, if not for the stupid smirk stretched on his face. It hadn't even been there a moment ago. It was like he figured Lex would challenge him and started laughing.

Her voice comes out low and dry. "Back off."

"Oh, so the new girl wants to mess?"

A small group has gathered around them: a good-looking guy with a certain… expression of superiority, a gorgeous girl with an equally smug grin, and a slightly overweight, nerdy guy who didn't fit in with the other two.

"Huh?" The boy in front of Lex growls before grabbing her by the shoulders and shoving her roughly back into the handrail.

Lex's head slumps forward.

"Idiot. What did you do?" The superior guy steps forward haphazardly.

Lex tilts her head up again and runs a hand through her hair in annoyance. Easily nonchalant, she lifts her leg in a front snap kick that the bully clearly wasn't expecting. The female observer lets out a laugh as the bully doubles over, eyes wide with shock and pain. "Drake's not going to be able to have kids anymore."

Even the nerd grins. Lex swallows and leaves before Drake can recover.

* * *

"Hey. You must be Alexis Caro." Lex enters her room to see a cute blond with a fairly friendly grin. "Yeah. Taylor?"

Taylor smiles. "The one and only. Pick your bed?"

"I don't really care."

"So where are you from?" Taylor shrugs and plops down on the bed with a window view.

"Canada. I just got accepted into an art school too." Lex wrings her left hand around her right wrist wistfully, a personal habit along with lip-biting. "Then I had to move here." Generally speaking, Lex's thoughts were her own. But if someone seemed nice like Taylor, she didn't mind sharing.

"What's your issue?"

Lex raises an eyebrow. "Pardon?"

Taylor laughs again. "No, I mean Coates Academy is known for kids who get in trouble. What happened to you?"

"Nothing really. You?"

"I'm not really a bad person. I'm just at Coates." Taylor swings her feet and looks at the ground nonchalantly.

"Okay then." Lex wrings her wrist again. Could she really say?

Pink tallies down her arms. Like the devil had been keeping track of everything bad that happened to her. The biggest scar—deepest one—was from three months ago. Hit an artery with that one. Severe bleeding. The wound was squirting blood for what seemed like too long. That was how Katie had found her, bleeding all over the kitchen.

Truth be told, however, Lex's 'problems' weren't really the reason she was at Coates. She was at Coates because her dad **had** to take her in and he didn't want her around. And Lex Caro didn't care.


	2. And the War Begins

_Can we pretend that airplanes in the night sky are shooting stars, I could really use a wish right now, wish right now, wish right now._

Lex frowns and scrolls down her playlist. Billy Talent. That works better.

_Today I walked down our old street, past the diner where we'd meet, now I dine alone in our old seats. The cold wind blows up through my bones, and I feel like I'm getting old, but I wish I was getting old with you. I held your hand while we took shelter from the rain, she laughed as we picked out our children's names._

Finding solace in music was something she did well—and often. It wasn't some corny emo-kid sentimentality thing. It was just that she could hum along and close her eyes and ignore everything by blasting music. Completely zone out sometimes too. She used to be a rock-punk-emo-scream fan, strictly. Basically anti-mainstream. But that just gave her the title of her eighth grade class's emo loser, so she started listening to a bit more stuff. Even trashy music like Sexy Chick and Break Your Heart, songs that turned out to be… surprisingly **catchy** and addictive despite the meaningless and often sex-driven lyrics.

Lex had a short attention span. It was just her. She clicked to something else, randomly.

_I could stay awake just to hear you breathing, watch you smile while you are sleeping, far away and dreaming. I could spend my life in this sweet surrender. I could stay lost in this moment forever._

Somewhere inside, she needed something re-energizing. A cut both called to her and disgusted her. She needed one badly. So badly. She was angry. So angry, she would cut even just to watch her own blood drip. But it terrified her at the same time. She had cut herself with a **butcher** knife. Like she was some kind of meat at a supermarket. She'd always been vegetarian too. She had **mutilated** herself. She was a total freak. Freak of nature. Beef. Chicken. She'd always used Swiss army knives before that.

Why did she use a goddamn kitchen knife? The memory was imprinted in her brain. She now couldn't think of herself without thinking of mashed-up meat at Loblaw's. It was disgusting.

"What are you listening to?" Taylor popped up suddenly, making Lex jump.

"Nothing much." Lex shrugged, noticing for the first time that Aerosmith had finished a while ago and that she was now two minutes into The Offspring's You're Gonna Go Far, Kid.

"Ooh, The Offspring!"

Freaked Lex out to no end how Taylor just seemed to appear everywhere. She'd been at Coates Academy for two weeks now and her roommate had been doing that continuously. Lex was starting to wonder if Taylor was a ghost or something.

Coates Academy had been kind of stupid so far. First day in, Lex had been ordered by the principal to remove her eyebrow piercing and snakebite. Then to **not** wear a black tank top under the white dress shirt. It wasn't slutty or anything—it wasn't like a black bra under a wet white shirt, just a wifebeater tank. And **then** he started talking about proper footwear. Lex had rolled her eyes in exasperation—only about half the population of Coates Academy really did wear the dorky shoes they were supposed to, but he was picking on **her**—and then given the principal the finger. He must have been used to dealing with delinquents because she got away with simply a warning.

She'd seen Drake again. Drake, the boy from Orientation Day. He'd smiled nastily on the first day of classes and slammed his books on her desk later in class. Yeah, lucky her. She was in Drake Merwin's class, sitting in front of him. They were in the back of the room so he leaned his chair back so that it was against the back wall, then raised his legs on his desk, feet in Lex's face. And he kept that position all class. Then a week later, he'd started leaning forward the whole class, whispering obscene threats into Lex's ear until yesterday, when she brought an arm back and smashed a fist into his face.

A gush of blood came immediately.

Lex's couldn't tell who had it worse. Drake, who's reputation had his reputation damaged by being beaten up by a 5'3 girl twice in three days, or herself, immediately frozen and panicking inside her head from the amount of blood flooding out of Drake's nose. Wanting a cut. Thinking of meat cleavers. Blood. Minced meat. **Drake Merwin's** blood.

"What's going on here? Ms. Caro? Mr. Merwin?" The irritated English teacher slash detention supervisor had stood up, her expression somewhere between worry and annoyance. Poor Mrs. Laren.

Drake had glared at Lex. That psychopath-would-be-proud look again. He chose to lie over giving up his reputation. "I fell asleep and hit my head on the desk, Jane. Good enough?"

Mrs. Laren closed her eyes, counting to ten in her head. "Mr. Merwin, detention for two weeks. I can't believe you're starting up so early this year."

A crude, shark-like grin spread over his face. "Yup. See you after school, Jane."

"**Mrs.** Laren, Drake. Not Jane." The teacher looked about on the verge of a tantrum. She marched back to her desk, plopped down, and breathed deeply for a couple of minutes.

"Caro, you're about to die."

"Try me, Merwin."

Challenging Drake Merwin, Lex noticed, seemed to get him both agitated and excited. That crazy glint would return to his eyes and he'd smile wordlessly for a moment before looking away.

Lex crossed her arms, unsure of what compelled her to say the next words that slipped out of her mouth. "Pity, Merwin. You'd be cute if not for your disgusting antics."

"Why, thank you. You're so sweet." He grabbed her from behind by the collarbones and tightened his grip, Lex holding her breath, until she heard something crack.

"Fuck you, Merwin."

"I love you too."

Merwin, 1. Caro, 2.


	3. Sleep Tight

**Author's Note: I was in a really peppy mood while I wrote this so you can tell Lex's a bit nicer... until the end xD Oh, and don't worry, Drake gets even next time. By the way, I worked this out: [SPOILER ALERT] Lex's mom insisted on her spending time with her dad so she spent, like, two summers with him between her parents divorce and the beginning of the story. And Perdido Beach is actually her hometown, thus explaining her developing powers since Astrid reasoned that the powers had something to do with radiation from the power plant incident 15 years ago. I couldn't just make her appear and start developing powers so I got that worked out lol...**

**Anyways, I think this chapter wasn't very good... but I had to get this past to move on to some better stuff xD Drake's POV next time? Opinion, anyone?  
**

* * *

**Lex's POV**

"Hey, why's Drake Merwin even at Coates?" I flop onto my bed and switch on my iPod again. I've been working at the art club for the past three hours and am utterly **drained**. The school's organizing some fundraiser and some dumbass on Student Council suggested an auction of student (or alumni) art pieces. **Without seeing whether or not we had enough works of art to auction off in the first place.**

Anyways, the whole art club is working frantically to make some art. I'm doing a metal sculpture. Week three at Coates and I'm already tired of school.

I guess the biggest thing that's happened this week is that my metal sculpture utterly melted. I don't even know how. One minute, I'm trying to shape the heated-up metal, and next, my sculpture of what should have been a dove has a melted body. I move my hand under the dove in reflex, trying to save the metal before it hits the ground, and then the whole underside of the dove… **caves** in.

The freakiest thing that occurred to me wasn't that, though. It was the fact that I managed to **catch** the molten metal from the wing. And that it wasn't hot or anything. Just… cold melted metal.

Really weird, but I don't feel like talking to anyone about it. Maybe I need a guidance counselor. I heard the Coates guidance counselor has to deal with Merwin. That must be fun.

"I mean, he goes to the counselor, doesn't he?"

Taylor chuckles from her bed where she's using her MacBook. "Drake Merwin? Are you stalking him or something?"

"Do you know how creepy that is? He's scary as shit."

"But you think he's kind of cute." Taylor waggles her eyebrows.

I shudder jokingly. Maybe it's true. And that scares me. That somewhere in the back of my mind, a **psycho** like Drake could be registered as cute. But anyways, 'cute' is just physical. Even if he looked like an Abercrombie model, his love life's still dead with his mentality.

"That's kind of gross. Drake Merwin isn't cute. You haven't answered my question anyhow."

"Oh, I heard he shot his neighbor or something."

I sit up so fast, I bang my foot against the side of my bed. "He **shot** his neighbor?"

"Yeah. Scary, huh?"

_If I smile and don't believe, soon I know I'll wake from this dream. Don't try to fix me, I'm not broken. Hello, I'm the lie, living for you so you can hide._

I shut Evanescence up. "Shot his neighbor… with a **gun**?"

"Yeah, usually, that's what shot means."

"Dead?" I'm kind of stunned. Really stunned, actually.

"No. Just through the leg or something."

I've been messing around with a guy who probably confined someone to a wheelchair for life? Not that I care about physical harm, I mean. At the same time, it freaks me out. I don't like hurting. I'm like every other kid in the world—hurting actually **hurts**. But hey, I've always been absolutely invulnerable to physical pain when I get mad enough.

Wait, wait, Merwin shot a guy through the leg?

Whoa.

I hear something hit our window. Obviously, talking about Drake has psyched Taylor out. "You check it out. I'm scared he's gonna come in with a gun. Speak of the devil much?"

Ha-ha. I make my way to the window past Taylor's bed. Opening the window, I look down to see Drake grinning. He makes a heart sign with his hands, that thing Justin Bieber does all the time, then winds up his arm and something comes flying at me.

Reflexes help out a great deal here: I raise my hand (like that would do anything) and the next thing I know, a formerly steel-tipped dart has hit my palm as harmless as a suction-cup plastic dart. In fact, it **looks** like a suction-cup plastic dart. As I said, a **formerly** steel-tipped dart.

This is crazy. It's just a normal dart, but the steel part has completely flattened out. I remember seeing a sleek shape coming at me, a mako shark, not a hammerhead.

Drake's looking up at me in surprise.

I look at the dart. There's a note taped to it.

_Told you I loved you. _

"Thanks, Merwin." I glare at him as dully as I can, trying not to freak out. Did I just… melt metal again?

"You creep, what happened to my dart?" He narrows his eyes and starts working his way up the tree outside my window.

"What's happening?" Taylor whispers as inconspicuously as she can.

"Drake."

She scurries into our bathroom.

"Where's my dart?" He demands, eyes angry.

"I don't know. Guess you missed."

"I didn't… It flew right at you. That… should have taken your hand out. What?"

"Get your eyes checked, Merwin." I smile. We're close enough that I could lean out of my window and kiss him. I edge out. More. More…

A light push is enough to make him fall out of the tree.

A surprisingly sickening thud echoes in the dark as he hits the ground. For a long moment, he doesn't move. And then he sits up, keeping with the macho act despite how much that must have hurt. "Alexis Caro, you motherfucker!"

"I love you too, sweetie. Sleep tight."

He totters to his feet and stumbles away, biting his hand to keep from crying out. Dang, that must have really hurt.

Score.

* * *

Taylor finally inches out of our bathroom. "Is he gone?"

"Yeah. Chicken."

"And did I hear you calling him 'sweetie'?"

This makes me laugh for no real reason. "No."


	4. Thoughts

**Author's Note: Daaargh there's too much talking in this one xP I don't know why but I made Drake sound really... kinda smart. Smarter than Lex.  


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**Drake's POV**

I'm now a month and a half into ninth grade. Hating it.

Not so much "I'm such a cool druggie that school couldn't possibly contain me" hate. Just a boredom hate, though there are certain things that amuse me.

Jane Laren, the detention supervisor.

Our poor, poor guidance counselor who has to sit through me ranting about killing him.

Caine's now-fully developed crush on Diana.

The new girl.

Jane is a geezer. She's okay for a teacher but she drones. And what **amuses **me is how she gets really mad whenever I do something but she has to control herself. I wonder how many migraines and inner tantrums I've given her over the past few years.

Caine has always been attracted to Diana. Hell, I'm the only male on campus **not** following her Highness around. She's a bitch. Smug and she doesn't know when to stop. I hear a great deal of hypocrisy in there, but I **know** what I'm doing and I consciously keep pushing if I want to piss someone off. She's just an idiot.

Why every guy around here likes her, I'll never get. What does she have on her after looks?

I'm shallow. Of course I'm shallow. But even I'm not as dim-witted enough to pursue someone as conniving as Diana Ladris.

And the new girl, Alexis Caro.

I know she hates my guts. I should be hating hers but the truth is that it kind of gratifies me every time she pulls one on me or I get her back. Obviously, it irritates and frustrates me at the same time, but there's always that little bit of 'I'm shooting a water gun at a girl in a white shirt' in the back of my head. Or something like that. Hormones.

I've got severely mixed feelings about her. Sometimes I want to make her scream. I want her to shriek and show she's inferior and I want her to see her own blood. That's when she gets me mad. Perhaps it's sickening to you, but if you've lived my life, there's this need for dominance and superiority. A fight is usually the best way to establish that. Other times, I'm silently appraising her smile. She's got different ones, a coy one (kind of what you'd expect to appear on a shy girl's face when the boy she likes talks to her), and this huge smile that shows up when she sees something she likes. Her first entrance into the Coates Academy library, for instance. Lit up her face. Then there's her sadistic smirk, the one she gives me all the time.

She's no Diana. Admittedly, Lex Caro is cute, but she's not gorgeous. Nice face, flat stomach, slim arms, shaving cream ad-worthy shins and calves. What went wrong with her? Her thighs. They're kind of strong from, as I've heard, years on a competitive swim team, so they give her a bit more bulk though she's still fairly lean.

I don't know how I know such details.

Don't get me wrong, it's not only her. Not like I'm **noticing** her or something. I just get details, like that weird strand of Caine's hair that never stays in place, or the lines around Diana's mouth when she smirks.

The worst thing about Caro would be how she doesn't give up. I could pick on Dekka and she'd just suck it up and try to ignore it. Caro, she gets me back. Like her Taekwondo club sparring partner stunt soon after my dart trick.

And the hockey stick in the face after **my** baseball bat on the arm.

We've got quite a… violent relation here. But I kind of like it. At least she doesn't think I'm some crazy psycho who'll shoot her. Like that Taylor brat, she doesn't do anything when I push her around because she's **scared** of me.

And having the world afraid of you is never a good feeling. Especially when you're fourteen.

"Get up."

I turn over tiredly to see Caine Soren standing over me. We're roommates, God help me. We both get nightmares all the time. Caine dreams of… assorted things. Me, I mostly dream of death. Death and company. But here's the major difference: if I have a bad dream and I wake up, I deal with it, tough it out, and blast music until the morning. Caine wakes me up to keep him company for about half an hour until he's ready to sleep again.

Guess we both had nightmares tonight.

I pop an earbud out. "What?" A one-syllable attempt to make him back off. This works on everyone at Coates. Everyone but Caine.

He smiles grimly. "You're not scary, Drakie."

"At the very least, I'm not **scared**."

This, obviously, gets to him. He raises a hand and I would have gone flying back if my back hadn't already been to a wall. We noticed this a while ago: that Caine was… kind of mutating. In a fairly useful way too, bringing to mind Superman. Except that Caine Soren is in no way the hero.

I haven't developed anything, but I've heard of other kids starting to get stuff. Like Dekka. Her and her anti-gravity. And Taylor, yes, wimpy Taylor, who can teleport.

Caro, I suspect, has something going on too. Like my dart from the other day. I found it yesterday in Jane's class. Presumably, she left it there. But anyways, it surprised me. The steel end… flattened out. It looks like a funnel now, almost.

How does someone do that?

And her sculpture for art club. I remember her saying that she was making a dove, but the end result was a dove with imprints where hands would be. She called it 'In the Hands of God'. How do you make hand imprints on metal?

I guess you could say I've gotten used to the prospect of these abilities. The wielders of such powers are, quite frankly, considered freaks by me, but they're still blending in for now. It kind of leaves me wondering how Caro, of all people, have powers. I think most of these freak abilities center around Perdido Beach, but she's a newcomer. So how come **she's** bending metal and I'm still relying on natural strength?

"Try harder, Caine. Maybe if I go through the wall, nobody will suspect anything."

This makes him grit his teeth in irritation. Caine is a lot of things. Something he's **not**, however, would be forgiving. He's in perfect control of his temper—at the very most, he'll let only a flash of anger show before pasting a smile onto his face again. Nobody knows what he's thinking or if he remembers that time you shot him with a rubber band. Let me tell you now: Caine Soren holds grudges. He may never get the chance to get back at you until a point when even you've forgotten what you did to him, but he **will** avenge himself in some way or another.

Yeah, there. His grin has reappeared. Funny, you never get the feel of teenage boy around Caine. Just Italian mafia gang leader. Until he's stalking Diana, that is. I guess the same could be said for me, minus Diana. But I'm not the gang leader. Caine is the chess player and I'm the knight. And in his game, Diana is the king. The useless, restricted, but most highly important king. I don't enjoy being the knight. In fact, I'm hoping to take charge, though Caine is obviously on the look-out for me.

"Hey Drake, do you like that new girl or something?"

"Not really." I say this casually, deciding on Led Zeppelin. Click. _Stare at the iPod until he shuts up_.

"I noticed how you guys always say things like 'love you' and such whenever one gets back at the other. Simple psychology: your excuse is that you hate her and it's sarcasm but you really are just trying to get it out of your system."

"You're a nosy fag, you know that?"

He smiles knowingly. "Is that a confirmation of my suspicions?"

"No. I don't like her. Have you ever seen a crazy buff chick like that before? She's not normal. Not to mention her **temper**."

"Wow. You have so much in common."

"Shut up."

I turn the volume up so high that I can only see Caine (who can probably hear the music but still insists on talking) mouthing words now.

"Did you know that Alexis is a total girl?" Caine gives me a conspiratorial grin. "She reads that shojo manga stuff."

"You're a creep."

"No, I just know how to find dirt. If you're ever looking to get with her, just read High School Debut. Her favorite, according to Taylor."

"Shut the fuck up, Caine." I can't help getting mad now. Why the hell is he **still talking**? He's really looking for trouble. I have no respect for Caine: I only put up with him because I have to. And I usually do that pretty well. But it's God-flipping three in the morning.

"But it this could be… potentially useful to get back at her too, Drakie."

"Yeah, yeah, Cainie."

I'm thinking. Devious, devious thoughts.


	5. IM Going to the Winter Ball

**As you can tell, I looooove IM xD

* * *

**

"Whoa, are you okay?" Taylor is drying her hair with a damp towel when Lex walks in, pressing tissues to her right hand.

"Yeah. Drake Merwin, you know?"

Taylor laughs. "What happened now?"

"Well I found some roses in art class wrapped for me… so I picked up the bouquet and I guess Merwin left it for me? The roses had thorns and they poked out through the wrapper paper once I, you know, grabbed it."

"Omigosh!" Taylor grabs Lex's hand.

There are puncture wounds scattered across her palm, bleeding sluggishly. "Dude, don't. It hurts."

Taylor swallows nervously. "Yeah. Sorry. How are the braces coming along?"

"Annoyingly." Lex had just gotten braces in for her overbite and they **hurt**. Of course, she had used her… okay, she now called it a 'power', to adjust the braces a bit, but they were still uncomfortable.

Lex had never really had friends back in Canada. Her best friend, Julienne, was popular so that was the only reason people even noticed her. And even so, Julie and Lex had met way back in first grade when they'd both been overweight dorks. Which basically shows that Lex has no ability to make popular friends. Lex hit her growth spurt in sixth grade and never got beyond 5'3-and-a-bit. She got skinny but only momentarily. Then she'd had to diet to stay in shape. Julie, however, started growing in seventh grade and got to 5'7, becoming so slim that all the popular kids took notice of her.

When Lex left, Julie was being swallowed by the popular crowd—willingly.

Taylor, she was kind of refreshing. She always had energy and kind of reminded Lex of Nicole from Zoey 101. So peppy and preppy, you know?

"Oh!" Taylor bounces on her bed. "**So** the other day, I was down in town and I met this really cute Mexican guy. I think he was Mexican, anyways… You should totally hook up with him."

Lex laughs. "Are you saying that because we both then, theoretically, speak Spanish?"

"Hm… Oh, that's true! Sorry, I'm terrible."

"And you know, I don't actually speak Spanish."

"Really? But you're, like, one of those girls you expect to see in Iyaz videos… like, you should have been at that Cancun Spring Break thing on Much."

"Pft." Lex's face warms up a bit. She's never been 'pretty'. Average-to-cute, maybe a seven out of ten. But she's not like Diana, who's definitely a future Anne Hathaway. In her wake, Lex is Hayley Williams, definitely not one considered beautiful by the general public. Hayley Williams kind of has a cute-or-hate thing going on with her looks. Or, generally speaking, Hayley Williams is known more for what she does than for her face. But at Coates… she's been called pretty a few times, from Dekka (who she was becoming quick friends with) to Taylor, to even Diana herself. But then again, wasn't it a female thing to compliment everyone else whether you mean it or not?

"SO, my dear roomie, the Winter Ball is coming up soon. Want to help on the committee with me? Or even more importantly, who are you asking to it?"

"What's the Winter Ball, beside the obvious?"

Taylor crosses her legs in a storyteller's position. "It's a once-every-other-year thing. For us, it costs more than the prom, so we have it in winter one year and in summer the next. It's generally kept to, you know, ninth grade and above. Like, you guys only need ten dollars to go, but we from the lower grades have to pay double that. However, we're allowed to go for the upper school price if we're invited by an upperclassman. Or if we're on the committee. Oh, it's semi-formal to formal! This is going to be so much fun! I can pick out a dress for you!"

"Ew."

"It's remarkable how you can burst my bubble with a single word." Taylor pouts for a bit as Lex shruggs and turns her attention to her HP. "Yo, I think I found you a dress."

Taylor perks up immediately, immediately diving into Lex's bed. "Lemme see!"

It's an aqua dress, mid-shin and flow-y. Intricate black designs curl up and down the sides, pointing out curves and accentuating flat tummies.

"Ooh, I love it!" Taylor grins at Lex slyly. "Don't pretend. I know you care about this girly stuff. Hey, you have nice fashion sense."

"Ew."

"Stop ew-ing me! Send me a link to that dress!"

"Okay."

Lex logs on to IM and quickly sends a link to Taylor before another box pops up. metric_, also known as Jamie Turner, soccer player and Metric fan. Jamie and Lex are in Grade 10 English together, a class that Lex had taken as an elective so that she would have more room next year.

**metric_: heard of the winter dance?**

**45: yeah**

**metric_: any interest in going?**

**45: not really**

**metric_: well if you ever reconsider, would you like going with me?**

"Jamie… Jamie Turner asked me to the Winter Ball."

Taylor lets out a little shriek. "What? Omigosh, say **yes**, you idiot!"

**45: sure.**

**metric_: I can see youre thrilled**

**45: very.**

**metric_: you're cute, you know.**

**45: you're so sweet**

**metric_: seeing you with merwin troubles me**

**45: merwin doesn't do any harm**

**45: he cant, I mean**

**metric_: merwin cant do any harm? he shot some kid, do you know that?**

**45: why do you keep tabs on him?**

**metric_: im just like that**

**45: lovely**

**metric_:**

**metric_: but I mean it. youre a cute girl.**

**45: I thought boys fell for blond-cheerleader-with-34Ds or dianas more than scream-loving-espanol losers like me.**

**metric_: I like screamo. an I could learn espanol if you want.**

**45: boy youre really getting serious aren't you**

**45: have to go.**

**metric_: bye**

Lex looks up to see that Taylor has been snooping behind her shoulder. "What the hell are you doing?"

Taylor looks at Lex, wide-eyed. "I can't believe it! You're so **lucky**! You got asked out by Jamie Turner! Next thing you know, you'll be dating… and then he'll have to go to college but he'll wait a year for you. Then you'll go to Cornell together and both succeed and then marry and your parents will tell everyone that you married your high school sweetheart and you'll have three kids named Caroline, Bianca, and Charles."

"Charles? What's up with that?"

In hindsight, it probably wasn't wise to tell Taylor all about her life goal of getting into Cornell and becoming a lawyer. "Taylor, you're a Taylor Swift fan, aren't you?"

"How can you tell? I've been told I look like her!"

"Go listen to her song Fifteen and tell me the moral of the story."

"Okay!"

Taylor occupies herself by searching up Fifteen.

Lex curls up in her bed darkly. Going to a dance with Jamie Turner.

Another message pops up.

**greatestever: heard youre going to the winter ball with turner?**

Drake's screenname amused Lex infinitely. It was from Forever by Drake, the line where he goes, "Last name ever first name greatest."

**45: your screenname makes me giggle**

**greatestever: well that's a weird sight**

**greatestever: YOURE one to be talking. at least mine makes reference to my name**

**45: mines care failure inspired**

**greatestever: ?**

**45: shes the lead singer of die mannequin… care failure… get it? caro?**

**greatestever: youre really weird**

**45: ahahahahahahahhahahahahahahaaa**

**greatestever: srsly**

**45: (:**

**45: :)**

**45: O////////O**

**45: :D**

**greatestever: STOP SENDING ME EMOTICONS**

**45: D:**

**greatestever: okay. are you going to the winter ball with turner?**

**45: this amuses me.**

**greatestever: answer**

**45:**

**45: yesandno**

**greatestever: yes or no**

**45: well he asked me and I accepted BUUUUUT im probably not going to dance with him. just cuz I don't like the athletic boys.**

**greatestever: I thought you read high school debut**

**greatestever: upon research, yoh komiyama APPARENTLY is good at sports. sos the girl.**

"Hm, I wonder who told Drake Merwin I read shojo manga." Lex turned and glared at Taylor.

"Iunoh." Taylor was now buffing her nails nonchalantly.

"Great."

**45: last name ever first name greatest like a sprained ankle boy I aint nothing to play with**

**greatestever: I thought you listened to screamo-emo**

**45: uh no. I listen to everything except country.**

**45: unless taylor swift counts. she mostly qualifies as pop now though**

**greatestever: weren't you anti-mainstream?**

**45: yeah but im anti-getting-labeled too**

**greatestever: …**

**45: SO my lovely are you going to the winter majigger with anyone?**

**greatestever: youre so weird.**

**45: D: howso?**

**greatestever: I don't ask people to dances.**

**45: wow I guess it doesn't matter that I destroyed your balls on the first day, then, 'cause youre never gonna use them anyways.**

**greatestever: do you enjoy pissing me off?**

**45: very. cuz youre so very cute when youre mad, you know?**

**greatestever: then you make me gorgeous at least twice a week**

**45: OOH take a picture and show mee (:**

**greatestever: im goin now.**

**greatestever: jesus Christ I swear you act like this on im just to freak ME out**

**45: no duhhhhh (;**

**greatestever is now offline.**


	6. Winter Ball Prologue

**Author's Note: Indeed, I enjoyed writing in IM xD Okay, Lex's IM is supposed to be _caro . failure 45_... but somehow, it all turned into 45... Just keep that in mind, please. Yeah, and the three parts are supposed to be all together but apparently, doing that makes everything disappear but the 45. And ughhh, God save me here... all the : in the IM-ing stuff... they're supposed to be Turner. His is metric [underscore] which I now have to type out because it would get wiped otherwise.  


* * *

**

**Lex's POV**

Ah, the Winter Ball. After three weeks of anticipation and Taylor dragging me to every store in Perdido Beach, it'll finally be over after tonight.

"Lex, are you ready?" Has Taylor not noticed that she's the only one pumped in this room? I turn and give her my dreariest stare. Like Sadako from Kimi ni Todoke.

Taylor made me go to every goddamn store around here though lucky me, my stepmother of all people ended up saving me. She had a dress from her own summer vacations back as a high schooler. It's kind of a sundress-ish thing and fairly informal, but I like it. Nearly knee-length, eggshell white. Kind of lacey at the bottom and it's a tank top dress so it looks way too innocently girly for me. But it's cute, especially plus the long chain I'm wearing with a faux antique key hanging off the end.

To my stepmother's disdain, I had chosen to wear a pair of boots with the dress. Like, ass-kicking boots, mid-shin height and mud-smeared. I would have worn Converse, anything but those strappy sandals from Taylor, but Converse-with-dress-oh-I'm-so-anti-mainstream-cool is overused.

"Don't worry, Paige. Lex is like that." Dave—Dad had laughed.

You wouldn't know, would you, Dad?

I, unlike Taylor, have shoulder-length hair so I just washed it and let it dry naturally so that it was pin-straight before coating on thick lines of eyeliner.

Taylor was going with a bunch of other girls on the committee, so she wasn't trying to appeal to boys, though I had the thought that maybe she was looking at Caine Soren. I'm probably wrong. She was already dressed up, half an hour too early. The dress I'd shown her, plus turquoise eyeshadow, black eyeliner, lip plumper, and the strappy sandals I had rejected.

When had thirteen-year-olds learned to be so… beauty-informed?

She'd even curled her blond hair and tied it into two low pigtails, very Taylor Swift looking. As of ten minutes ago, she'd been bouncing up and down on her bed, waiting for her girlfriends to come along whereas I was still using my laptop, head against the wall and 'ruining' my hair, as Taylor puts it.

**: Are you preparing for the dance?**

My dad. Lovely, eh? He somehow managed to add me though this is the first time he's messaged me. We have different surnames because I was with my mom. Rosalie Caro. I never really found surnames and crap like that a big deal, but looking at my dad's screenname now, it makes me uncomfortable.

**45: yeah**

**: Who's going with you?**

**45: some sophomore **

**45: though technically… hes NOT because 10****th**** grade isn't the second year at coates**

**: Okay then. Is he safe? It's not that Drake boy, is it?**

At this moment, a crazy thought crosses my head: hey, if dating Drake Merwin could piss my dad off, I would do it. Okay, dismiss that idea. Stupid, stupid Lex.

**45: what do you care?**

**: Alex, I'm your dad, and no matter what you think, I do care.**

**45: REALLY?**

**: I see that you can hold a grudge. You get that from me, did you know that?**

**45: never thought I really got anything from you. except maybe the annoying, the flab, and the irresponsibility.**

**: Don't hold back, kid.**

**45: taylor needs help with her hair. bye.**

I block him. Kick my bed in irritation. And then of all people, I message the Coates Academy bad boy.

**45: drake?**

**greatestever: WHAT?**

**45: D: why so mean?**

**greatestever: I have to serve food at the dance.**

**45: (:**

**greatestever: our principal comes up with such creative detention alternates. I cant have detention because I only get five more before I get suspended. you read the rules right? anyways I ask him for something else and he goes "OH you can serve juice and pastries at the dance!"**

**greatestever: fuck that old man**

**45: well youre kind**

**greatestever: yeah I learn from you**

**45: uuuugh I don't wanna go to the stupid dance.**

**greatestever: me neither. who DOES?**

**45: taylor hhaha**

**greatestever: lets trade. I don't want to work. you don't want to dance with your soccer jock**

**45: compelling… but wont principal p watch out for you?**

**greatestever: I drugged his coffee**

**45: xD youre really a weird dude, drake**

**greatestever: im serious.**

**45: …**

**greatestever: call his office.**

Warily, I cross the room and pick up our room's phone. It's a within-campus system made so that we students stay locked up and so that the teachers can keep tabs on what we're saying. I swear, they've totally bugged this system.

Extension 001. "Hello? Principal P?"

No response.

Crazy. Principal P is **always** in his office.

**greatestever: what did I say?**

**45: omg. you flipping drugged a teacher?**

**greatestever: no I just tied him up, drove a hatchet through his skull, and threw him off the beach. no shit, sherlock**

**45: some crazy part of me thinks you would do that**

**greatestever: …**

**45: hey would you do that to my date too?**

**greatestever: with pleasure**

**45: iloveyou (: THANKS**

**greatestever: youre one to call me strange.**


	7. Winter Ball Part 1

**Ooh, okay, and I forgot! xD Thanks for all the nice reviews (: LivesInStars especially, thanks so much... I was having a really bad day until I checked my email and saw, like, 7 new emails from

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**

**Drake's POV  
**

So obviously, I didn't murder Principal P or nothing like that. I did give him some sleeping stuff though. He should be knocked out for… say… at least twelve hours. I wanted to though. Man, do I look like a waitress? I should have knocked his fake teeth right out.

"Take out Jamie Turner? Compelling."

"Caine, shut the fuck up and stop reading over my shoulder."

Caine grins evilly. He's going to the Winter Ball, of course. He's had girls asking him to the dance all week. No Diana, but loads of cute girls.

He finally agreed to go with Taylor, just because she was so sweet about it. Though I'm more than sure that Caine will be using Taylor to get Diana jealous. I don't think Taylor even likes him. She probably just wanted a free pass into popularity and The Clique-ness.

I, in my typical 8:30 half-dead fashion, change into a black Eminem tee, an ass-long (a.k.a. too long) black hoodie from a Billy Talent concert, and pull on jeans. Caine, on the other hand, has styled his hair, put on an ugly short-sleeved button-up shirt that showed off his really knobby elbows, and had somehow managed to wear dress pants without laughing at himself.

"I'm tired." It's true. My eyes are somewhat glazed over from yesterday night. True, I woke up at two because of a nightmare, but then I made a considerably stupid choice of staying up till four IM-ing Caro. She's much easier to talk to online despite her attempts to weird me out.

"Too bad you'll be serving punch all night."

"Yeah, whatever."

I look over at the girls' dorm. I can see the window farthest to the right on the second floor open, lights on, a slim female figure greeting a guy about a head and a half taller than her. He looks her up and down, grins, and then slings an arm over her shoulder.

Okay, I'm not a creeper. It's just that the girls' dorm is really close to the guys' dorm.

Lex Caro and Turner. Kind of makes me shiver, and trust me, I don't shiver for many things. "Do you think I'll ever get along with girls?"

"No."

That was really stupid. Somehow, I managed to vocalize my thoughts. Caine is now grinning smugly at me. Again. Fuck it, I'm going to punch his jaw in. Now.

I'm about halfway to him when my computer dings, announcing a new message.

**45: hey. leaving for the dance with jt now. see you there?**

Right on cue, I see them leaving the girls' dorm, Caro thumbing away at her iPhone.

**greatestever: guess so.**

Another ding.

**cssquared: drakie I love you (:3**

**greatestever: leave, caine. and stop messaging me.**

**cssquared: whos caine? im lex caro 3**

**greatestever: man you're pushing it**

**greatestever: you're such a total creeper.**

**cssquared: only when needed**

**greatestever: ah**

**cssquared: well im leaving with turner now**

**greatestever: I don't like lex caro, Goddammit. NOW SHUT THE FUCK UP BEFORE I COME AFTER YOU.**

I look up, glaring hard. I feel like my head's going to explode, not from Caine's stupidity (kind of…) but at his **competence** in pissing me off.

He's still smiling stupidly from ear to ear.

What?

I check my phone again.

My window with Lex is open.

**45: gee thanks drake**

**45: perhaps I think much too highly of you**

Damn, should Caine be ready for a round now.


	8. Winter Ball Part 2

**Author's Note: xP This chapter and the next are a bit more serious... Anyways, I lost my patience and hooked them up though you can be sure that Imma throw in some problems along their relationship [mwahahahhahahaha on bass amps]

* * *

**

The front doors of the Coates banquet hall is adorned (speckled) with teams of photographers. Couple photographers, precisely. Like Taylor said, this was as big as prom, so the photography teams actually take photos of you which you can order into cards or whatever.

Turner and Lex are already dancing to some slow Josh Groban song when Caine busts in, bloody nose and all. His normally pretty face, messed up with a bruised eye and a heavy nosebleed. Taylor, who has been waiting for her date all this time, let's out kind of a gasp and hurries over to him. Even Diana seems piqued with interest.

"What happened?" Her tone is somewhere between worried and amused.

"I'm good at agitating Drake?" Caine manages a half-cough half-laugh.

Diana pulls him aside. "Why didn't you just throw the bastard through a wall or something?"

"Because I'm interested in seeing what he'll do here." Caine grins and wipes at his nose with the back of his hand.

He had spent the last twenty minutes convincing Drake that Lex liked him, something Caine suspected entirely. There oughtta be a show.

"Hey, Caro, Drake's outside."

"Can I?" Lex looks up at Turner. Turner frowns before taking off his Bench jacket and draping it over her shoulders. "It's cold out there. Careful."

"Thanks."

She zips that oversized jacket all the way up so that she can almost hide in it, and then makes her way out. Drake is leaning nonchalantly against one of the big pine trees outside of the banquet hall.

"That's a hell of an ugly jacket."

"Thanks. That's the ugliest piece of Billy Talent merch I've ever seen."

"That message wasn't for you."

"Yeah, well I kind of figured out that you hated me. You know, especially since the nosebleed incident."

"That's the problem. I don't really… hate you. This isn't a confession or proclamation of love or anything. I'm just saying I don't hate you. I can tolerate you."

"Gee. That's great. Yeah, Drake, I tolerate you too."

Lex turns to leave, eyes rolling in annoyance.

"Okay, Caro, you know that's not what I mean. Don't make me **say everything out loud**."

"Say what?" A sly grin crosses her face now. "Hmmm?"

He rolls his eyes. "I know everyone thinks I'm psycho. I do have certain problems but I'm definitely not crazy. And besides, even a schizo has hormones."

Lex grabs him by the collar and pulls him to her. "What now, Merwin?"

Drake Merwin is toned, lean, defined in every limb. Except for his lips. Soft and unlike her own. Drake is the one who leans in and finishes the movement. And they stay therefore at least half a minute, breathing raggedly, before Drake straightens up.

"Come on, take off that ass-ugly Bench crap." She pulls it off and he wraps her in his sweater. _I'm thinking of The Sweater Song from Hedley_. Lex's head hums pleasantly, almost like she's buzzed. _He said 'Forever girl, I know you hate the weather girl, so maybe you should hold onto my sweater, girl.'_

Caine is almost cackling in devilish excitement. Diana looks at him strangely. "What happened?"

"They hooked up! I was right!" Caine sounds like a ridiculous 10-year-old girl who got tickets to a Justin Bieber ticket.

Diana rolls her eyes. "Oh, the poor girl. Drake's going to tear her head apart."


	9. Drake

**Lex's POV**

Being with Drake Merwin has its pros and cons.

Pros:

-Nobody messes with you.

-Drake **can** be disconcertingly sweet.

-Taylor's head is in a blank coma of awe.

-We went to a Billy Talent concert for our first date. So turns out having something in common **does** work out.

-I love seeing the suspicious looks on our teachers faces when we arrive late together, and then hearing the teachers whispering, "Are those two together? Oh, that's not good…"

Cons:

-Drake has been… mostly apathetic lately. You know how there are people who are average-mean to you and when they get close to you, they're always either buddy-nice with you or making fun of you? Drake is one of them.

-I have Caine mocking me.

-Diana's mocking me.

-Turner's furious.

-My dad is flipping out. Which could be a pro because it amuses me that much.

Overall, it's kind of cool. Drake Merwin is someone that nobody has really raised any standard for. I think he's like Bones from Gentlemen by Michael Northrop. Less douche-y, perhaps, but almost as extreme. Anyways, it's a once-in-a-lifetime thing to be dating the school bad boy and I'm loving the looks we get from everyone else. Not necessarily **good **looks, but I'm easily amused by everything. It's like having a partner in crime sometimes, though Drake's usually the one who gets in more trouble.

I'm still the new semi good-girl who's dating Merwin. Psycho boy.

He's, like I said, very apathetic. He's taken to punching my arm whenever he sees me. Either that, or basically smashing his teeth into mine. I see his gums and lips bleeding sometimes after he does that (braces = meat chopper) so I wonder why he still does. Well, I can tell this is going to be kind of an abusive relationship.

"Caro, are you going to English?" He's approaching me now, hair funked out over his face, which usually means he just showered. A sharp punch to the shoulder and an arm looping my neck.

"Uhm, I guess? 'Cause it's **English**, you know? Kind of crucial to succeed in life? What do you have in mind?"

"I was thinking we could take off and do something fun." He tilts his head back and rolls his neck back and around so that I can hear some cracking noises.

"You're such a pedo."

"I steal little Spanish girls from their boarding schools. It's terrible. Really, it is. And then I steal their first kisses too. And a whole lot of other firsts."

That's not meant to sound wrong. Or maybe it is. You can never tell with Drake. What he meant, I guess, would be first **date** and first **boyfriend**.

"Had a terrible night—"

"What, you had a dream about me?" He laughs at this.

I roll my eyes, trying to suppress a grin. "Taylor stayed up moping about missing some Jonas Brothers concert. Which is okay if she was whining about how she spent fifty dollars on her ticket, I mean, but instead, she was whining about how she couldn't see Nick's awesome hair."

"I know the feeling. Caine was sobbing about his parents in his sleep." Drake clenches his teeth. "Jackass kept me up till three."

Okay, I admit that Drake can be a little… mean at times.

"Don't be like that." I pull my mouth up in a sideways smile. "He has reasons, I mean."

"I guess. It's just really annoying. I mean, if you're going to be a little girl, do it by yourself in a hole somewhere like everyone else in the world does. I mean, like I—" Drake cuts off sharply and keeps walking.

"Does Drakie cry at night in a hole too?"

"**Don't turn into Caine**." He snaps this so sharply, I jump.

"What the hell, Drake?"

He shakes his head. "No, Caine has been calling me Drakie. That's all."

"No sorry?"

"Sorry, 'guess."

The idea bemuses me. "Caine Soren calls **you** Drakie?"

"Yeah. He's a weird guy." Drake laughs but there's a visible shadow across his face.


	10. Dreams

**Drake's POV**

Tonight's playlist consists of Breaking Benjamin, From First to Last, Alesana, The Offspring, and Scary Kids Scaring Kids. I'm blasting The Only Medicine when Caine walks in, drying his dripping hair. Half naked.

"Put your shirt on," I snap. "I'm not Diana. I don't enjoy looking at that pathetic one-pack."

"Yessir." He stares at me and I glare irritably right back. Caine's probably the only person around to take a shower at eleven and then sleep at one. Before waking from his nightmares at three, of course. But then again, I'm probably the only one around playing screamo at full volume at this hour.

"Do **you** have any better?"

His words jolt me out of thought. "Huh?"

"Well you called my abs a one-pack."

Pft. Leave it to Caine to get hung up on something as trivial as that. "I'm not answering that."

Caine grins in that stupid way that makes me want to smack him. "Maybe I should ask Caro. She'd probably know. Have you guys **done** anything yet?"

"Don't be stupid. Caro can't take more than kissing. And she's already sacked me so many times, I doubt I have the reproductive abilities of another kid my age anymore."

"Oh, really?"

Caine has been freaking me out lately. He says stuff like that and then looks at me funny. As in funny-gross. Makes me want to kick him, but then again, my mentality has been getting edgier and edgier lately. More irritation, if you know what I mean. I went to see our guidance counselor yesterday and our conversation went something like this.

Doc: I heard you've recently gotten a girlfriend?

Me: Yeah?

Doc: This should be good for you. At least you won't be so focused on your anger anymore.

Me: Sure.

Doc: Do you not like the girl?

Me: …

Doc: Because I know that in many cases, a boy and a girl get together because one is pressuring the other.

Me: She's fine.

Doc: Well, how have your dreams been lately?

Doc: More… hormonal?

Me: No.

Doc: Would you like to explain?

Me: Doc, I've been explaining to you that I have the same few dreams for the past couple of years. And I've explained all those dreams to you before.

Doc: Yes, I understand that, but—

Me: No, I don't dream about torturing animals anymore, okay? I dream about clawing Ca—

Me: **Stop trying to make me talk**.

Then I kind of flipped his bookshelf over and you can guess how much detention that got me. I've been having disturbing dreams about… Well, there's some Caine mixed in there, and there's some Lex mixed in there. I can't remember exactly, but all I know is that I wake up wanting to claw at Caine's face, wanting to make him bleed. Sorry, Lex, I'm afraid I'm getting violent again.

I expected to have **something** to dream about with a girlfriend. I'm a teenager, I mean. But instead, my dreams are just getting really fucked up.

Lex texts me:

_Sleeping well?_

Wud I answer if I was asleep?

_Haha, your lights on_

ah, I c

_I'm having a weird nightmare_

_I mean I WAS_

rlly? care to elaborate?

_well do you need to sleep?_

no

_I dreamed about my mom and her face was melting_

wow do you hate your mom or something?

_ugh. cruel. no I love my mom of course but she was just melting and there was a silver frame under her face_

_so im wondering if I did that_

what do u mean?

_nvm_

_but then I saw this mirror and there ws this skinny girl _

so?

_like see-ur-ribs skinny kind of like from christina's beautiful? and she was goddamn eating my moms metal frame_

… maybe you do hate your mom. subconsciously

_thanks. it freaked me out. it was like a scene out of the vours_

the vours?

_a horror novel. its really good._

ah. if you cant sleep you can always come over since our dorm advisor never really patrols…

_hmnnnn tempting but NAH ;) I don't want to see you sleeping in the nude just yet_

haha I wont but you can see caine shirtless

_gross_

I smile. "Hey, Caine, Lex called you gross."

Caine gasps indignantly. "Well tell her that she's blobby."

caine says ur blobby

_what the hell?_

I dunno

_BLOBBY?_

lol… okay ima sleep now

_okay bye. maybe I will come over_

ooh.

_THAT WAS SO DRY_

ikno

_haha night then_

night


	11. Whatcha Doing Winter Break?

**So I had some fun here (: OH, and by the way to LivesInStars: IM is instant messaging so like MSN or Google Talk (is it called that?) and it's just a system kind of like email except a lot faster and everything's live. I decided to do what Permanently said in terms of italic-ing (:  


* * *

**

Drake Merwin wakes up groggily. He wipes his eyes with the back of his hand, grabs a shirt and pants from his closet, and makes his way to his (and Caine's) washroom. Pulls off his shirt and fills up his cup with tap water and begins brushing, eyes still glazed over—until he looks up into the mirror.

His lips are painted red and his cheekbones have some sort of… sparkly powder sprinkled across them. And his whole torso area has been graffiti-ed with eyeliner.

_Property of Caine Soren!_

**I own these abs (: -LC**

_ONE PACK MAN!_

**stonerboiiiiiiiiii**

_DAMN you's a sexy bitch DAMN you's a sexy bitch DAMN you's a sexy bitch DAMN GRL_

**for the record, this was HIS idea xP ily**

_Yes __copyrights CaineSoren_

**In cooperation with LexCaro Inc.**

Somewhere around the belly button, Lex's thick liner pencil had drawn a creepy eye, while Caine's hazy liquid liner (wonder where he got it from, anyways) had doodled a crude Hannah Montana with buck teeth and afro-ish hair.

_Oh, my God_. "!"

The whole boys' dorm awakens to Drake's roar.

* * *

"Did you like my pretty drawing?" Lex bumps Drake as she catches up to him on the way to English. Drake glowers at her. "Not amused."

"Caine wanted to make you sparkly like Edward Cullen."

"You're so funny. I had to scrub my _body_ with _eye makeup remover_ for fifteen minutes to get all that gunk off."

"You do agree though, don't you?" Lex smiles as sweetly as she can without cracking up. "I own your one-pack. That sad, sad one pack."

"It's pre-ab!"

"No, pre-abs are kind of… two-packs. You're just flat."

"If I get a six pack, you shut up."

"Deal."

Coates is covered in a sheet of white snow now, being December and all. There's a banner stretched across the main hall reading 'HAVE A GREAT WINTER BREAK!' Ah, yes, Winter Break. It begins next week and all students who choose to (or if their parents insist) get to visit home for two weeks. Lex is going to live with Dave and Paige after Paige _insisting_ that Lex spend her holidays with them. Drake, however, is staying at Coates with a handful of other students.

Lex grins inconspicuously: of everything Drake washed off, he forgot his lips. As they walk into class, everyone erupts into laughter. "Drake, did you play with your mama's lipstick?"

Drake glowers and sends a calculator flying at the boy who said that before storming across the room and taking a seat. He wipes at his mouth furiously and tries to hide the bright red spreading across his face.

"You're so cute sometimes." Lex smirks dryly—becoming more and more like Diana, Drake notes—and hands him a tissue. "Where are you going for Winter Break?"

As soon as _Jane_ starts talking, Drake responds in hushed tones. "I'm staying here."

"Aw, how come?"

"It's awkward moving back into my neighborhood, even for two weeks."

Lex taps her desk, drumming her fingers on an imaginary piano. "Hey, you could stay with me and Dave and Paige."

"Dave and Paige?"

"My dad and stepmother."

Drake raises an eyebrow. "Naw. I thought you hated living with them?"

"Pft, they're okay. I just hate being there and, you know, I'm kind of an outsider? Especially since Paige's kid is coming back for the break too. Some Laiken kid, pre-university. More happy family with me stuffed in the picture."

"Want me to trash your dad's winter break?" A wide smile spreads across his face an a hint of mania that hasn't been there in so long returns.

"The only reason for a boyfriend. Obviously."

* * *

**Next time: Winter Break with the family (dundundun) Dad meets Drake, Lex meets stepbrother, stepmother meets Drake, stepmother hates Drake, CHRISTMAS**


	12. Daddy Doesn't Like Him

**Sorry for the long leave :& had grad and camp and whatnot xD And I forgot this last time but we ARE PRO HEALTHY GUMS :DD  


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**

**Lex's POV**

_Oh_ –_ and_ – _who _ – _is_ –_ this_ –_ charming_ –_ young_ –_ fellow._

That's the only way I can describe Dave's tone. He had raised his eyebrows at Drake before haphazardly helping us get our crap into the back trunk.

Now Drake and I are sitting in the back of the car, laughing and writing crude messages on the windows.

"Hey, uh, Drake—Mister Merwin, what do you major in?" My dad is trying extremely hard to make conversation.

I can't help grinning as Drake pulls on his best dumb jock voice. "Uh, like, lunch?"

Paige's unnaturally high voice has gone up at least half an octave today. Her laughter comes out sounding like a squeal. "Stop joking, _Drake_! You're so funny!"

I lean forward so that my head is between the Paige bobble head and Dave, who is currently frozen in a position not unlike that of The Thinker's. You know, had _The Thinker_ been driving a car.

"Dave, he doesn't exactly _major_ in anything."

"Like, detention maybe? Major means, like, in charge of, right?"

I wonder how Drake can pull off this nauseously moronic voice so well.

Dave's face goes pale. "Alex, we will _talk_ when we get home."

"What, like, about me? What, you think I can't hear you? Is that what you mean, old man?" Drake kicks the back of Dave's seat hard.

"_No – just – about – her – grades." _

Paige's nervous piggish laugh echoes throughout the car.

This could be a nice vacation.

* * *

**Drake's POV**

Lex is loaded. Her dad drives this fancy Porsche and her stepmother looks like she's had her nose done more than a couple hundred times. Her _house_ is double the size of mine and I get my own huge guest room.

I channel brainless. A mix between Caine and the stereotypical male bimbo. "Could I share a room with Lex or something?"

Dave is having muscle spasms in his face. His eye twitches and his lip trembles. He looks like he's going to throw some shit. "Mr. Merwin, we believe in separation of the sexes here."

"Well I'm not calling Lex a dude or nothing, but—"

His face blows into red and he snaps, "YOU CANNOT ROOM WITH HER!"

I furrow my eyebrows. "Then, like, you want me to room with you or something?"

"Alex, please come talk to Mr. Merwin!"

He leaves the room in a fit of rage.

Lex ducks in a moment later and does kind of a happy dance. Yeah, she's cute sometimes. "You are _awesome_!" She throws her arms around my neck and then pulls me into her happy dance. 


	13. I HERD U LEIK PITZA

**Lex's POV**

Three days into winter break. So far, we have half buried Dave's Porsche in snow, accidentally bombarded Paige's face with snowballs, and we've just called Dominos for fifty pizzas. You know, for a 'huge house party at the Caro residence!' I don't really know why I'm doing this. I'm not really a horrible person. Just, you know… I hate Dave and his wife-ditching ass and Paige and her fake-as-hell Botox and surgery.

The doorbell rings just on cue.

"Can you get that, Alex?" Paige calls from the kitchen.

"I'm tired!"

Footsteps from the basement means that Dave is getting it. Drake and I watch from the stairs, exchanging smirks.

Dave opens the door to a flustered-looking pizza delivery guy. "Er… Dave Caro? We've got thirty pizzas here for you so far. The other twenty are coming in the second car and should arrive in five minutes or so."

"What? Fifty pizzas?" Dave laughs. "Are you sure you've got the right place?"

"Yeah, Dave Caro, right? You're throwing a house party?"

Dave stares at the delivery man in bewilderment. "No—"

"Yeah, party's upstairs!" Drake shouts and waves.

The delivery guy starts lugging bags upstairs. Dave narrows his eyes and dashes up to us. "You ordered fifty pizzas? On my account?"

"Yeah. You shouldn't leave your credit card lying around. But I figured, we're family so whatever, right?" I smile innocently. His face is turning red again.

"Okay, what are we going to do with this?"

Drake shrugs. "Whatever you want, boss."

Dave growls, "Well I can't make you _eat_ what you won't eat like any other parent would. So you two are going to hand this pizza out to the neighbors. Do not come back until you are done."

* * *

We end up 'delivering' to three houses and then bribing the pizza man to do the rest for us. Paige calls me at about 9 after we've lounged around for two hours, pretending to be delivering.

"Alex, what would you and Drake like for dinner tonight?"

"I dunno, like—"

Drake grabs the phone and shouts into it, "HELLO, MISSUS CARO? I THINK I'M IN THE MOOD FOR, LIKE, PIZZA?"

* * *

**Hmn... any ideas for what happens after this? Summer is making me sluggish...**


End file.
